William Bologna

Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto Apr 29, 1995, North Korea Pyongyang May Day Stadium I'm filling in some gaps here. As famous as it is, I haven't seen any of the matches from Antonio Inoki's infamous trip to North Korea. Time to cross that one off. The other gap is joshi. I have seen very little. I know a lot of the names, but I never got around to it. I mean, there are only so many hours in the day, and there are still Wolf Hawfield matches I haven't seen. In my defense, I was there for Manami Toyota's U.S. debut. I was all, “Oh shit it's Black Widow from WCW vs. nWo: World Tour!” I think she heard me. So this should be a promising one to get me started. I know who they both are – Hokuto's married to Kensuke, and I remember Nakano from my Alundra Blayze-plagued childhood – and they're both supposed to be good, right? Maybe that's not right. Like I said, I know the names but not much else. Was that like saying, “All Japan was led by such luminaries as Mitsuharu Misawa and Jun Izumida”? First we get like five minutes where they introduce all the competitors. There's 2 Cold! I fast forward to the introductions, which are in Japanese. There is some light, polite applause. It really is a big damn crowd. Bull largely relies on the hair-based offense that I remember her using in WWF. She gets a big reaction with a couple hair throws and a yell. She does seem to be a good choice for an unfamiliar audience. She's got a big look. I'm focused on the crowd reactions here, both because it's interesting to hear what people who don't know anything about wrestling respond to, and because I enjoyed Scott Norton's story about everyone being dead silent until Flair worked his magic on them. "Scotty boy, I've been doing this a long time." Something like that. Well, they're not silent for this. We get roars for Bull's spots, and real cheers when Hokuto mounts her comeback. I didn't think much of her spin kicks - the first one missed by a mile - but they're working on the crowd. We go back and forth for a while, with Bull cheating to a greater or lesser degree (she pulls out some nunchucks in full view of the ref, but maybe the Pyongyang Athletic Commission doesn't allow DQs) and Hokuto making comebacks. Missed kick aside, Akira is impressive. She gives Bull a really sweet German to get back for the 'chucks, and her cross-body to the outside is the best dive I've seen all day. By which I mean, I just watched Dominion. It was a good show, but not one of those dudes managed to land on the guy he was trying to jump on. Not Hokuto, though - she bullseyed Nakano, who did a very professional job catching her. Our finish comes when Bull tries a somersault senton off the top. Hokuto gets out of the way and does a sort of poison rana rollup into a pinning predicament that's complex enough that I don't feel like trying to describe it. The crowd is seriously buzzing when NJPW World shuts off the sound, so it's safe to say that these two won over the crowd. I enjoyed this a lot. I've watched some interesting or even entertaining stuff for this project, but this was the first good one.

Mar 21, 1991 Tokyo・Tokyo Dome 3RD MATCH Steroids Warriors Showdown Scott Norton Vs. Ekuraiza I'm leaving the title just as it is on NJPW World, because there's a lot going on there. Steroids Warriors Showdown! In the last match, Jesse Ventura reminded us of Superstar Billy Graham by stealing every single thing about his persona. Here we are reminded of Graham's surprising frankness when it came to the tools of the trade - in his case, lots and lots of steroids. Ekuraiza is Equalizer, who is best known to me as Dave “Evad” Sullivan. Pre-NWO Hogan in WCW is some of the direst shit ever, and this is a great example. See, evil Kevin Sullivan had a good-hearted brother who was the world's leading Hulkamaniac. He was also a dimwit who got his own first name backwards. Did anyone consider the implications of this? Hey WCW fans! Don't you love Hulk Hogan? Don't you want to be like this guy? That's in the future, though, and for now he's imitating my two least-favorite wrestlers, with his half-assed Ultimate Warrior facepaint and Bruiser Brody-style carpet samples on his boots. Norton gets a big pop and a very exciting entrance (ring announcer: "Ova za top Scotto Curush Norton!"), looking like Jonah Hill took so many steroids that he's about to pop. Did Scott start dying his hair later? He's all gingery here. It's a different kind of match. They do as many big guy spots as they can in three minutes. The blow a few, but there's no time to dwell on it because we're on to the next one. Really, it's the best match Scott Norton and Evad Sullivan could possibly have. They yell at each other a lot, and Norton shows some impressive athleticism. That's not all Norton shows us. The finish comes when Norton hits the worst powerslam you've ever seen, pulls Equalizer's trunks, and reveals his scrotum as the ref counts to three. The dude's sack was just out there in the Tokyo Dome getting some air. I hope Evad got a big sack of money to make up for the taint of defeat. Given that this is only outing on NJPW World, it looks like he took his balls and went home. At least fans were going nuts. I thought that "Steroids Warriors" was going to be funniest thing about this match, with the fearsome Equalizer turning out to be Evad goddamn Sullivan a close second. But they swerved me. They swerved me with Evad's balls.

Jesse Ventura Vs. Kengo Kimura January 6, 1983 Superstar Billy Graham recently passed away, and there's been a lot talk about the immense size of his shadow. Many of wrestling's top stars would not have looked, talked, and acted the way they did if it weren't for Graham. Case in point: Jesse Ventura flaunted a bodybuilder physique, arrogant attitude, and hippie flower pants too close to the Superstar's prime for it to have been an homage. He apparently made a joke of this, claiming that Graham stole the look from him. He completes the ensemble tonight with a beret and a Plato's Retreat shirt. Plato's Retreat was a sex club in New York, which I'm told had a very nice buffet. Was Ventura there for no strings attached sex with strangers or did he really like eating out of chafing dishes? I guess it's none of my business. The bulk of this match is about knucklelocks and heeling. Kimura is there to play the personality-less black trunks straight shooter, while Ventura whines. They do the bit where there's a clean break and Kimura pats him on the chest, and Ventura complains to the ref like Kengo hit him. He lies about using a closed fist. The work ain't much - these are some slow-motion knucklelocks, and the crowd is being "respectful," if we want to be euphemistic - but I'm a big fan of the chicanery. Which continues as Jesse punches Kimura in the ribs a couple times and lies about it. When Kengo does it to him, Ventura takes a huge theatrical bump and throws a tantrum. "He hit me with a fist!" We all perk up as we think we're getting a high spot, but false alarm it's just a bearhug. Finally Ventura gets Kimura into a sideways torture rack. There's cheering as Kengo fights, but he finally gives up. Ventura was exactly who everyone says he is in this match. Not much on the working side, but lots of personality. Tatsumi Fujinami was always helped by facing a cheating dirtbag, and we saw a similar dynamic here. It was a little off seeing Ventura play the coward and then win with a very direct strongman move. I didn't hate it, but it was only eight minutes.

CIMA & Gamma Vs Ryuichi Kawakami & Shimatani Check GLEAT Ver. 3 - 1st Anniversary - July 1, 2022 It's the first anniversary of GLEAT! All I know about GLEAT is El Lindaman, whom I dig, but he's not in this. This is a twofer – the only showing for both GAMMA and Check Shimitani. I don't know anything about these guys. CIMA is the only one I've heard of, and I wouldn't know if I walked by him on the street. Kawakami leads the "Bulk Orchestra" and his partner "Check." These facts lead to me believe that all the good names in wrestling have been used. Is it too soon to recycle "Tarzan" or "Team No Respect"? The Orchestra arrives in force, and they clearly have neither a height requirement nor a rule against performance-enhancing drugs. We get a lot of rope-running and talking. It's not doing a lot for me, but it's fun to see CIMA out there looking like Dan Spivey. These dudes really are very small. As things heat up, the Bulk Orchestra comes in to cheat. They put a guy in each corner, and then they all run into CIMA at the same time. It's incredibly dumb, but I like that it's in character – that's exactly the kind of thing a “bulk orchestra” would do. It soon becomes cartoonish. GAMMA hits everyone with a kendo stick, but Kawakami has these giant gauntlets that he uses to block it. Eventually CIMA wins. I might not be missing much by not keeping up with GLEAT.

A New Japan World subscription opens up a world of content. Want to see more of today's top stars? They have 1,407 Hiroshi Tanahashi matches. Are you interested in the decades-long history of the King of Sport? Well over six hundred Fujinami vs. Choshu matches. But I like the weird stuff. You got a classic Kenta Kobashi Triple Crown match? Nah, I'd rather watch Johnny Smith take on the Headhunters. So my favorite thing to do when I have an NJPW World subscription is go all the way to the bottom of the tags list and try to figure out what the hell is going on. That's what I'll be doing in this thread. We have 292 wrestlers with one listing (each) on the service. I won't get to all of them. Some of them aren't actually there. But there's still lots to check out: Dudes from GLEAT. Misspellings. Jesse Ventura. Women. The Great Antonio. Let's get started with . . . Dino Bravo vs. Abdullah the Butcher November 5, 1981 I remember Dino from my Hulkamania-plagued childhood, but this is the first time I've watched one of his matches on purpose. He comes out with Dick Murdoch, while Abdullah is accompanied by Bad News Allen, looking quite hipsterish in a goofy cardigan and t-shirt that says, "Pro Wrestling." He's also got a busted finger, and I gather that's why we spend ten minutes sorting things out before the match starts. It appears that this was supposed to be a tag match, but with Allen down to nine fingers we're going to make it a single. This is pretty contentious - everyone except Abdullah is yapping, and WWF president Hisashi Shinma has to come out to calm everyone down. I can follow what's going on because, in one of the great linguistic coincidences, "singles match" in Japanese is "single matchy." While they argue about this, the Butcher is standing perfectly still and sweating like a horse in church. He also looks like he's already bleeding. You'd think we were five minutes in. If you had asked me which of these four guys would still be alive today, I would not have picked the obese one with a seeping wound on his head who breaks a sweat from standing still. Shinma's also still alive, by the way. Surprised me. We finally get started, and in two minutes there's blood everywhere. Dino hits Abdullah a couple times, we go outside, and then we roll back in and bleed everywhere. Bad News throws a pound and a half of powder in Dino's face and commences to kicking him, triggering the DQ. Then Abdullah stabs Dino in the head with a spike and then brawls with everyone. And we're done! All that preamble for a four minute match. It wasn't a good four minutes, either. I went and watched Murdoch take on Abdullah from a couple years later, and it was so much better. The Butcher really worked in that one. Here he was just awful. He didn't come off like a wildman; he came off pained and tired. I didn't get much from Dino Bravo. His strikes weren't any good, and that's about all he did. He bled a lot, but maybe not enough to make it back onto NJPW World.

I still listen to Entre dos Tierras, and it’s all because of Kaientai’s entrance at ECW Barely Legal.

I really like this as a category. I always thought Super Delfin was good at it.

I'm always pleasantly surprised by Akebono matches. I realize I'm grading on a curve; I never expect much from a 40-something retired sumo wrestler. A lot of modern wrestling lacks a sense of struggle. Akebono matches are nothing but struggle, most of it against himself. He sweats at an all-time level. You can feel the difficulty he has picking himself off the mat. When he finally lumbers into position to do damage, it means something.

Bamford Bamington Bigelow

All chaps are assless. It’s like saying “sockless pants.”

He was the ref in the match Ed Wood watched before he recruited Tor Johnson (George Steele). One of the great pro wrestling movie moments.

Orange Cassidy isn’t a body guy either, but look at them.

So Cole’s just completely given up on the gym, huh?

ROH was on my local ABC affiliate at 5 pm on Sunday (DC area). That's not a normal thing, right? There's no indication on their website that I'd be able to see them there.

Mark Henry is absolutely the #1 guy from the Attitude Era.

Fightmaster is a name in English, but apparently it’s garbled German referring to woodworking. It gained something in the translation.

You mean when he was making the exact same referee-related gesture as the other referees, including a black guy? When he was obviously indicating a three count, and the same mania that got people all pissed off about a Jeopardy contestant took hold? No egg on my face; I'm not the one who got trolled into hysteria by 4chan.

I just re-read Seanbaby about talking Fujita's impossibly thick head, so I'm ready. What should we watch? I remember kind of liking a title match against Nagata, even though he was doing a Goldberg impression.

Thank goodness they got Mox and Kingston out of there to clear the way for the Canadian Dork Show.

I went looking for some Dick Murdoch content, and I found Murdoch vs. Steve Williams (which was great). Ross immediately - immediately - started talking about football. It wouldn't have been any different if it had been Ed Ferrara doing commentary.

I recently watched the Wrestling Classic. I wouldn't recommend it except that Ventura is just off the charts great through the whole thing. He's a heel, but he's always right. And there's just something about the way he says "Gorilla." They really did us a disservice when they had him edited off the tapes. You might be right about Heenan. I remember getting pretty annoyed at him in that Rumble, and I was shocked to see it talked about as an all-time announcing performance.

Edge looks like he’s 500 years old. Flair would look better in that spot.

Kimura wrestled into the 21st century, but I was thinking more prime Hart time-traveling into prime Fujinami's position. I'm always surprised at how many people on PWO think so little of Bret. He did pretty well in the GWE voting, but the thread about him is a lot more negative than I would have guessed. I'd be interested to hear some detail on what you mean by dyed-in-the-wool WWF worker. He worked fine with Flair (I want to say better than Fujinami did, but it's been a while since I've seen Hart vs. Flair); he wasn't out of his element when Hakushi was doing Space Flying Tiger Drops on him. I can understand that Hart's character might not land for someone (I have a similar block with Kenta Kobashi), but your comment that he was subtle and nuanced gets to why I prefer him. I don't find any nuance in Fujinami's work. He does a pretty good fighting spirit babyface, and that's the extent of it. And as far as the actual work goes, I cannot imagine the guy who wrestled Owen at WM10 having a bad match with any of the more technically-minded NJPW guys. I'm thinking Hase as the dream opponent, and Hashimoto as the worst case. I don't know that I've ever seen a Hart match built around him getting potatoed, which is an area where Fujinami excelled.

Why is that one bad match his fault and not Misawa's? The idea that Bret Hart couldn't have a good match against Kengo Kimura beggars belief. He wrestled Choshu a bunch of times. Maybe I missed it, but nothing in Fujinami's work suggested any progression in his character or his attitude toward his rival. The one time he's supposed to show anger, getting himself disqualified for being too vicious, he can't muster the fire he needs to make it convincing. In his matches with Choshu and Inoki, the other guys are a lot more memorable than Fujinami. For a top guy, he was too often a bystander in his own matches.

Speaking of Shawn Michaels being a subtly unprofessional prick, did he undercut/sabotage Diesel at WM 11? I haven’t seen that match since it happened, and I don’t know the provenance of the claim.